From Tom Millar Sent Fri, Aug 6th 1999, 01:35
From Tom Millar Sent Fri, Aug 6th 1999, 01:35
My previous response to the question- what comes after postmodernism- was a little cryptic. I said "answers." Then Stever here sez "irony is out, sincerity is in" and it made me reconsider my phrasing. Quite frankly we have been living in a world of subjective standards and massive irony for a while. This is the postmodern era- to each his own, but everybody is engaged in constant reappraisal of themselves and their subjectivity- you haven't started putting faith into absolutes, have you? Part of this is related to the scientific community's being behind the curve right now. The things we dreamed of in sci-fi pulp 50 years ago are still trying to be implemented in the real world. Societal reforms imagined nearly a century ago have still failed to make a difference in most people's lives. The stagnation in our supply of new situations has led to a nearly obsessive re-examination of everything around us to the point that nobody bats an eye any more when they see Sprite ads talking about how stupid soda commercials are. Basically our environment hasn't significantly changed for about a half century and we're rehashing old ideas at unbelievable rates using recursiveness and retro-reference as excuses. The 'net may be a new factor, but it still only affects a very puny part of the world's population. As more people get access to the global information exchange it ought to be interesting to see. What I'm getting to is this- we have dwelt on irony for far too long. There's not much left to be gained from making any more DMX Krew albums. Questioning everything and behaving like there are no viable absolutes leads to a downward spiral of absurdist antics that we're just now getting tired of, so I think it's time for a return to absolutes. I think people might be heading back towards standards and a structured canon of knowledge and information. Dada and stuff is cool, but ultimately Duchamp and Cage are too much for most people to grasp. So it's back to quality for us, I'm afraid- conceptual highmindedness just don't cut it anymore. I think. Maybe. Tom